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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6854 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026

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Are you aware those genes don't simply convey resistance to the Black Plague, they provide more generalized resistance against lethal infectious diseases?

That is not information conveyed in the article you linked. The primary protection is against Y. Pestis, I went to the trouble of looking and I find no evidence of significant protection from other pathogens, at least for the ERAP2 variant in question.

As the article confirms:

However, the protection against plague conferred by these variants appears to have come at a cost. The protective ERAP2 variant is also a known risk factor for Crohn’s disease. Another protective variant has been associated with an increased risk of two autoimmune diseases. Thus, the Black Death and other past pandemics may have shaped humans’ immune systems in ways both good and bad. While we acquired better protection against infections, we became more susceptible to autoimmune diseases.

Yeah. It's a tradeoff. What would you rather have, a genetic resistance to Y. Pestis that is far from perfect, and obsolete with the age of antibiotics, or elevated risk of Crohn's disease, which is chronic and lifelong?

And recall the Native Americans were devastated by diseases for which Europeans had developed immunity. It provided a strong genetic advantage.

They were doing just fine before being exposed to alien pathogens. And the Europeans probably picked up syphilis in the process. I don't see how this improved things for anyone.

The Black Plague certainly impacted all classes of people, but the poor masses were hit harder, which yes would be another selection effect suggesting eugenic pressure. Higher immunity among higher social classes is observed even today.

That is much more likely to be a consequence of improved nutrition and sanitation. The wealthy also had the luxury of flight in the face of the plague. They also, yes, probably have better genes for physical and mental health overall, but probably not to that drastic an extent.

Scholars cite the pressures created by the Black Plague on the Catholic Church as being decisive in the Protestant Reformation in Europe, and in the breakdown of feudalism in England towards the manorial economic system which then gave way to the market system.

That's fine.

I already cited the genetic trajectory of Rome (genetic decline -> civilizational decline), granted that bakes in the assumption that population replacement from North Africa was dysgenic, and the subsequent correction towards Northern Europe was eugenic. But it did happen that way.

Yes, and you need to justify that assumption better. North African Berber populations are not the same as the people further south, the Sahara Desert is remarkably inconvenient. There has been a great deal of population admixture over 1.5 thousand years, so a naive extrapolation from current IQ figures is fraught.

If you took away war, starvation, and apocalyptic disease from our evolutionary timeline we would be devolved and unrecognizable and not human. Not saying I support all those things, but the eugenic effects of these sorts of pressures: war, disease, etc. lends credence to the "hard times create strong men" meme, but it's not always true. The pressure has to be eugenic in nature to ring true. Somalis living in a shithole isn't going to make better Somalis unless there's a eugenic selection effect. "Hard times" that are also dysgenic do not make good men.

It is a very good thing we have options these days, like gene therapy as I've mentioned previously. We do not need war and disease to trim the herd, it's a horribly crude solution at best.

Even in the absence of civilizational collapse, selection pressures were still present. In the absence of modern medicine, disease was rampant. Wars still killed people, albeit at a lower background rate. I wouldn't accept the trade of setting back living standards and tech levels so hard it took a thousand years to recover, during the late Enlightenment or early Industrial Revolution.

Yeah. It's a tradeoff. What would you rather have, a genetic resistance to Y. Pestis that is far from perfect, and obsolete with the age of antibiotics, or elevated risk of Crohn's disease, which is chronic and lifelong?

The question is what would I have preferred my ancestor to have had who was actually living in that time and place? Obviously I'm still here, meaning all my ancestors survived all that war and disease to reproduce. If they did not have that variant there's a higher likelihood I am not here.

They were doing just fine before being exposed to alien pathogens

They were doing just fine until.... they met other people. That's a great evolutionary strategy. They didn't have to survive those apocalyptic diseases like Europeans did, and they melted on first contact with the outside world.

The wealthy also had the luxury of flight in the face of the plague. They also, yes, probably have better genes for physical and mental health overall, but probably not to that drastic an extent.

Yes they did, and I am saying that was a selection pressure, as ugly as it is to say. The overall quality of the survivors is higher than the population before the event. That is the definition of eugenic.

It is a very good thing we have options these days, like gene therapy as I've mentioned previously. We do not need war and disease to trim the herd, it's a horribly crude solution at best.

I feel like you are refusing to understand what I am trying to say. I am not trying to say "war and apocalyptic diseases are good options today to improve society." I'm saying very real selection effects from these high-mortality events lend credence to the "hard times create strong men" meme and "good times create weak men" adage, but do not guarantee that a people living in a miserable situation will always become better for it. "Hard times" are often, but not always, associated with major historical genetic changes. In the case with Rome the genetic changes follow the cycle well from end-to-end: Latin tribal upstarts raise hell on the Italian peninsula, create strong imperial genetic stock and Civilization. Civilizational success leads to decadence: importing slaves from all over the world, population replacement, decay of Noble status and lineage. Decadence creates stagnation and decline. Decline creates a genetic cleansing event that creates the modern European/Italian and progresses to the Middle Ages, where these cycles of pressure continue until we are here today.

I understand what you're trying to say. I've noted the points of agreement and disagreement. The most specific is the claim that the change in population after the collapse of Rome was dysgenic, and that the specific adaptation to the Plague was a net positive after the plague subsided. That might be true, but definitely needs more evidence to be more than a possibility. The selection pressure wasn't so high that the protective allele became predominant, and that's despite Bubonic plague being a recurring problem.

My gripe is with the claim made (by others) that the cultural consequences of "hard times" are positive on net. It is also true that selection pressure strong enough to overcome genetic drift will produce adaptations that might be eugenic, depending on the context. For example, the protection provided by the mutant ERPA2 is probably dysgenic now, since we don't really have to worry about the plague but can't cure Crohn's.

More importantly, the advocates for the Hard Times thesis often want to intentionally cause suffering and hardship, because they think that's good. Even if it's debatably eugenic, the juice is clearly not worth the squeeze.

I do not lightly agree with SecureSignals about anything, but I think he has a point that you'd misunderstood his claim: while it may be true that some advocates for the meme want to intentionally cause Hard Times, Signals had bee fairly clear that he wasn't making that point, merely the retrospective claim that historically, as a matter of fact, Hard Times have produced Strong Men via eugenics - whether or no that was "worth it" and whether or not that would or should still work today.

The most specific is the claim that the change in population after the collapse of Rome was dysgenic

You have that backwards.

Latin warlords conquer Italian Peninsula: "Hard Times" that create good men (From frame A towards B, essentially genetic replacement of Early European Farmers with Indo European colonizers).

Genetic Changes during Imperial Rome: "Good times" that create weak men (From From B to Frame C). Decadence, dysgenic cultural practices enabled by prosperity: fertility decline, population replacement, decay of noble status and lineage. Huge genetic shift in the population.

Late Antiquity: "Weak mean create hard times" - From Frame C to D and onwards, imperial Rome collapsing and being genetically cleansed by the barbarians.

Medieval and Early Modern: "Hard times create good men": Genetic changes from Imperial Rome are reversed, genetic foundation for the next phases of European culture.

I apologize. I misread:

I already cited the genetic trajectory of Rome (genetic decline -> civilizational decline), granted that bakes in the assumption that population replacement from North Africa was dysgenic, and the subsequent correction towards Northern Europe was eugenic. But it did happen that way.

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